Phillies Blog, Baseball News, Trade Rumors & Spirits

Monday, January 31, 2011

Baseball dawns for spring training early arrivers

Spring Training officially opens in two weeks, but that hasn’t stopped several Phillies from getting an early jump on the action.

Roy Halladay, Ryan Howard, Domonic Brown and Kyle Kendrick are among the early arrivals to camp, Tweeted top right-handed prospect Jarred Cosart yesterday. Other noteworthy players include pitchers Michael Schwimer, Justin De Fratus, Mike Zagurski and Scott Mathieson, all of whom will join the big league camp constituency this spring. The Phillies typically announce non-roster invites to several young prospects too, as they did with Tyson Gillies and Phillippe Aumont a season ago; both are already in camp. Cosart himself could receive such a late invitation, as could outfielder Jiwan James, who is also there.

Grilli appears to have finalized deal: Speaking of Twitter, Beerleaguer broke news yesterday of Jason Grilli tipping his status with this Tweet: “This Italian Stallion is fired up about the City of Brotherly Love! Balboa workouts paid off and ready to go!” Follow Grilli's Twitter here.

Door still open for Durbin: CSNPhilly.com’s Jim Salisbury reports that a person close to Chad Durbin says the free-agent reliever continues to mull several offers, including one from the Phillies. "The door is definitely not closed,’” the source told Salisbury. “He wants to go back to Philly.” Durbin is reportedly seeking a two-year deal and an annual raise over last season’s $2.15M figure.

Savery pegged for Double-A first base? Many people thought the Phillies would lose former first-round pick Joe Savery to the Rule 5 draft after he was left unprotected, but the Phils were able to keep him. Last week, Mike Drago of the Reading Eaglecaught up with Phillies assistant general manager Benny Looper to get a status update on the pitcher-turned-first baseman. "He's a good-looking hitter," Looper said. "We want to give him a chance." Savery will play first base when minor league camp opens. When asked if he has a shot at Reading’s opening at first, Looper said "That's a spring training question, (but) I wouldn't be surprised."

"Major League Baseball, concerned by an alarming rate of injuries, brought in medical personnel Thursday to speak with Commissioner Bud Selig's special committee."

Teams spent $369.5 million last season in salaries for players on the disabled list, according to MLB. There were 462 players on the DL for 23,682 days. Five teams, led by the Minnesota Twins, spent more than $30 million on inactive players.

"It's not just the big-league salaries you're paying," Chicago White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said, "but the salaries you're paying for players to replace them. You're also starting their major league service time."

"Many people in attendance at the owners' meetings agreed the problem has become more severe in recent years. But Los Angeles Angels manager Mike Scioscia, a member of Selig's 14-person committee for on-field matters, which was formed during last offseason, said there were no easy solutions. The committee did not disclose what was said while meeting with medical personnel."

There are actually some interesting RFPs and talks that came out of this meeting to some various Health IT/Employer Benefit consultant folks. Frankly I am kind of surprised at how little teams generally spend on benefits especially for their minor league systems and how little they systematically track the overall health of players beyond the basic medical expense trends.

Grilli: More Minor League depth couldn't hurt. Durbin? Yeah, he wants to return (other than Werth, who wouldn't?), but where does he fit on the this roster? Plus he's asking for too much. Because Blanton isn't gone (yet), he probably should consider signing elsewhere. I woudn't mind having him back though.

It makes sense to leave a roster spot for one of the younger bullpen guys (i.e., Worley, Mathieson, JC Ramirez, DeFratus, Schwimmer). We need to eventually see what we have with these guys. If we could get a couple decent relievers out of that group, it would really help out on future payroll.

That said, I do think there's room on the roster to have both Chad Durbin & a dedicated young guy's spot. Right now, your bullpen certainties, or near-certainties, are: Lidge, Madson, Contreras, Romero, and Bastardo. Durbin would be a 6th. Unless Baez earns the last spot in spring training, that would leave one more spot to try out one of the younger guys.

There are a lot of moving pieces in a bullepn and it's very easy for something unexpected to go wrong. I'm not a huge Chad Durbin fan but he would definitely give us a little more margin for error in the event of injuries or unexpected down seasons from some of our core group. Banking on young guys sounds great in theory but it fails far more often than it succeeds.

There is certainly room for a proven commodity like Durbin. Just no way the Phils will sign him a to multiyear deal at a larger price tag than last year.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are a couple of teams interested in signing Durbin at a higher price tag than last season (say $2.35-2.5M). I just can't imagine there are any teams that are jumping at having to pay that over 2 yrs.

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Charlie Manuel: The Phillies manager, who was there to see Halladay pick up his Cy Young Award, said he is going to play rookie rightfielder Domonic Brown "a lot" in spring training -- which sounds like the plan Braves manager Bobby Cox used with his rookie rightfielder last year, Jason Heyward. "You have to remember that he really hasn't played that much baseball," said Manuel of Brown, who turned down a college football scholarship to sign out of the 20th round with Philadelphia.

Manuel also wants to work with Brown on keeping his hands lower as he loads to hit. "I think when he got around the big leagues, he wanted to put on a show and impress people," Manuel said. "That's natural with a young player. But from what I know, he didn't have his hands quite that high in the minor leagues. He's going to play a lot this spring."

NEPP: I'm not sure if you're kidding or not, but that wouldn't shock me all that much. Given steady at bats in s/t, the motivation that he's playing for his career at this point and the fact that he's competing with Wes Helms, I say he has a fairly decent shot.